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SPANK WHILE YOU SELL:Corporal punishment imagery in print advertising

By C. Farrell

In recent times some social historians have taken to
interpreting a given time and place in terms of its advertising. Are the creative directors of advertising agencies, who are hardly typical citizens, really the people who most have their fingers on the pulse of a society? And if so, are they merely reflecting the society back at itself, or do their activities themselves help to change the collective perception?

At all events, it is certainly true that advertisements can sometimes -- perhaps unintentionally -- be revealing about how particular concepts are viewed and how they might relate to the contemporary zeitgeist in a particular culture.

And the concept of corporal punishment is no exception. In this feature we look at 15 US and UK press advertisements in which CP is pictured. What are they telling us about the attitudes of the period, and the place of CP in popular culture?

Click on each title in turn to see the advertisement in full and read the commentary. They are in roughly chronological order: